Angsty Torchwood Drabbles
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: To quote Jack, does what it says on the tin. "Not an auspicious name, is it? What happens to torch wood? Doesn't it burn?" S1.
1. Chapter 1

Rating: G-PG-13 (which translates to "T")

Disclaimer: If I had any rights to or influence on Torchwood whatsoever... let's just say it'd be a little bit different. Like, no "Gratuitous Metal Bikini" episode. Oh, wait, it was called "Cyberwoman", wasn't it? Sorry. I forget these things. :)

Spoilers for S1, jumps randomly throughout. As I don't know exactly why I started writing these, I can make no promises or even predictions as to whether or how long they might continue. But I can say they'd show up on my LJ first. (blinks suspiciously puppy-dog eyes) Okay, so I'm lonely...

Ah, and the last one was inspired by a fantastic Torchwood vid on Youtube to Fastball's "The Way". I'll never be able to unlink the two in my head again.

-

He can practically taste the words on his lips, feel his tongue shaping the sounds-- for a moment he even thinks he's actually saying them, but he's held it back. He's held it back, and he just looks at the man at the hospital bed, wondering if that was the right choice. These words could fix it, save it, end it all, and isn't that what they both want? For it to be over?

_No. He doesn't want it to be over. Not really._

So he just watches, plays it out, leaves with the words that would've ended it still clear in his mind.

_You should've let me die._

_Yes. I should._

-

She reaches into the box, fingers brushing the little white pill.

_This is all right because:_

Because-- she has to tell him. She can't keep it a secret any longer. And telling him will hurt him. And she doesn't want to hurt him. So, if he doesn't _remember_ her telling him, then she'll have told him and he won't hurt and everything will be fine, just like always, it can all be fine.

_So this is all right. It's for him._

She slips the pill in her pocket and walks away.

-

"So, what're you doin' here?" says the man beside him on the bus, and he knows he can't tell him the truth. Can't say, _I woke up this morning knowing I didn't drink last night and I still couldn't remember how I got home. _Can't say, _I know I shouldn't have a hangover but I do anyway, my head's all fuzzy and there's no reason for it at all. _Especially can't say, _but I've been fighting with my girl an' she's workin' for some top-secret government agency and when I woke up this morning the word "go" was written into my wrist so deeply I still can't get the ink out. I don't know why I did it but I'm one to take a hint, yeah?_

So he says, "Girlfriend cheated on me."

"Oh, that's bad," says the man. "I know exactly how you feel."

-

If she looks on it objectively, she doesn't see why she ever liked him.

She's not especially attracted to him, though there could be any number of reasons for that; he's never been exceptionally nice to her; he's never shown the slightest hint that he thinks of her as anything but a coworker at all. She should never have been attracted to him-- she should at least have given it up a long time ago.

But there was more to him, she thought. Look under the surface and there was an intelligent, formidable, caring man, who just needed someone to-- oh, god, something ridiculous like "crack his tough shell" or "tame his wild ways" or "change him into an entirely different person", which is what those other phrases always boil down to, in the end.

You can't change anyone. You can only hope to get them to change themselves.

And Owen likes far too much of himself far too much for her, at least, to stand any chance at that.

The thoughts, god, the thoughts... one person in a thousand thinking anything worth remembering. No one's looking for her; no one's looking at her; no one cares.

And she's not sure anymore that there's ever anything "under the surface".

-

When he closes his eyes that night it's not her face he sees. Not her distorted, cyberized face; not her true one. He'd expected the nightmares would be of her, of her voice going mechanical, of her falling to the floor, pierced by god knew how many bullets from the people he'd called friends. What had been would meld into what was and he's not sure he could survive it.

But it's not her he sees. It's not her; it's not their past; it's not his "friends" when they were betraying him, or he betraying them, who can keep up.

What he sees is a dim-lit corridor, deep in the bowels of the Torchwood complex; twisty and dark with emergency lighting and the floor wet with groundwater and--

--with--

What he sees is himself dragging the heavy thing backward, muscles aching with the weight, because he's-- because it's so very heavy, heavier than you'd think, dead weight--

--dead--

--limp and heavy and he isn't doing this right, there's limbs flopping out and he can't get it to drag like it should and he keeps seeing his eyes.

He keeps seeing his eyes, the doctor he brought in to help her, the doctor she killed because he brought him there, the doctor who'd promised to keep his secret, and he was dragging his dead body through the corridor like any common murderer because he couldn't be found, he couldn't be found, they'd kill her and he'd do anything to keep that from happening.

Eyes.

She could've been saved if it hadn't been for--

--if it hadn't been--

There must have been a way it could've turned out differently; there's always a way. A trillion parallel universes and in one of them he must've got her back, he must have--

--and he can't see-- _how_.

He did everything he could and everything he shouldn't and hid her and guarded her and she'd turned-- but she remembered him-- she could've remembered--

Eyes. Eyes from a ruined head. Life gone and his only reaction was to hide the body.

When did he turn into... a person who was capable of that?

_She could've been saved,_ he insists, blinking tears away as the sun-streaked ceiling blurs into view.

The way he'd sworn to laugh on his grave. Dead eyes accusing him.

_Maybe he didn't think he had a choice._

There was always a choice, that arrogant son of a bitch just wouldn't see--

--dead eyes-- the shock of seeing him on the first time on the floor-- his first thought not _what has she done_, but _what have I done?_

Three people dead, and how much of that was Jack's fault? How much of it was hers, how much the Cybermen, how much the doctor-- how much of it was his?

He stares up into the light and finally lets himself think, _Maybe it was a bit more complicated than that._

-

"Aren't you getting just the teensiest bit tired of being betrayed?" says the Master.

Jack's got the feeling it's a ludicrous statement coming from him. He's also got the feeling that it's true.

"The Time Agency left you. My esteemed arch-nemesis left you. Didn't he leave last time you with you screaming at him to stay and clinging to the edge of his TARDIS like a child pulling at mummy's skirt for an ice-cream?"

Not a memory he wants to relive. Which guarantees the Master'll bring it up.

"You know, he could've skipped any one of half a dozen betrayals, and none of this could have happened," says the Master. "He could have picked you up, and you'd never have joined Torchwood. He could've refrained from behaving like a drug-addled simian around the Queen, and there wouldn't have been a Torchwood to join. If there hadn't been a Torchwood, Harriet Jones could never have shot down that ship-- and if she hadn't shot down that ship, the Doctor wouldn't have had any reason to betray her, and there wouldn't have been a vacancy open for me. And if he hadn't run away screaming rather than endure your presence for five minutes... well, you'd never have found me, and I'd have died a stupid, peaceful old man at the End of the World. All of this... he made it possible. Isn't it delicious?"

Jack has nothing to say. At this point, he has no idea what would come out if he were stupid enough to open his mouth.

"I should thank him. Even helped in my campaign-- I assure you, I never once looked tired." He grins maliciously. "Oh, that was a delicious bit of propaganda. It preyed so perfectly on all of your basest instincts. Your love for youth, the way you judge women on appearance, and worst yet, the importance of style over substance... Admirable. I'd never have thought he even knew your flaws so well, much less was willing or able to exploit them so... In fact, I would have thought he'd be _sure_ such a campaign would never work. He'd have thought people were better than that. Ah... how people change in a mere few hundred years."

In a few months. In a few minutes.

"It's strange, isn't it?" he says. "I could've spent a century telling you about the Doctor... and never once would I have used the word 'betrayer'. He's changed. Not for the better, I'd say. And such a meddler as he is... Why, he could almost be as much of a threat to the fate of the universe as I am. Even more. At least I'm aware of what I'm doing..."

Lies, Jack knows. Lies piled on lies. And truth.

He's in pain and he's lost count of how many times he's died since he got here and he's exhausted and he's-- so very tired-- of being betrayed by him. 'You're such a disgusting freak of time and space that I couldn't stand to be in your presence for thirty seconds to explain why you've developed a mild inability to die.' Bullshit. He didn't care enough to explain. He didn't care about anyone and he was impulsive and reckless and...

"I think there's higher standards for people to whom the fate of the universe-- the fate of anything, for that matter-- is entrusted... wouldn't you agree?"

Screaming his name as the patch fo blue faded from reality for another few centuries. If he'd had his way.

"What is it you want me to do?" he asks.

This isn't a deal with the devil. He's not making a committment. He can go back on anything he says here in a heartbeat when the Doctor wins.

No matter how infernally the Master's eyes are gleaming.

-

A tap on her shoulder brings her out of it, abruptly; she draws in a quick, shuddering breath before she reminds herself where she is, what she's doing, who most likely the person is who was rude enough to bring her out this way. Well, not, maybe, rude, she thinks, somewhat absently, focusing on keeping her next breath calmer. Maybe just thoughtless.

Of course, she's not so sure anymore that thoughtlessness is any better. But: the screen, the white walls, the glazed psuedo-wood of her desk. Reality.

"Shit, I keep forgetting," says her boss. "You all right?"

"Yeah," she says, "yeah. But next time, could you maybe glance at my screen first, actually check what I'm working on? You can do that sort of thing if I'm working with a spreadsheet, but the Interface..."

"Yeah, I'll do that," he says. Maybe he'll remember, next time; he does sound truly sorry. "The Interface, again... How're they doing?"

She sighs, hearing the faint sound of the music she'd left on coming through the headphones on her desk. _Anyone can see._ "The same. They haven't noticed. It's... a hell of a thing to see. The signs are there, but they just-- don't _notice..._ They're just-- this'll make them sound selfish, but they're wrapped up in themselves. They've made themselves a whole world, there. Their own little dramas. They only half make sense-- it could be the Interface, but I don't think so..."

"Like a dream," says her boss. "That's what Markham said, right?"

"Yes-- but they're all so _dark_... It's got to be the device doing it, I just wish I knew for sure why. In their world, they're the only branch left."

"Yeah? What happened to us?"

"Somehow we never bothered rebuilding after the... well, 'catastrophe' doesn't really cover it, but let's leave that for now. One branch mysteriously vanished, and the last is run by some crazy old man who apparently doesn't keep in touch."

"So it's just... them. Five people?"

"Whole of Torchwood."

"And that doesn't seem hopelessly inadequate to them."

"They don't think about it. Have I mentioned they've got the word 'Torchwood' on the side of their cars?"

"...Good lord."

"They're just wrapping themselves up in their own little stories, drifting further and further from reality, and-- I hope Lucy's right about that device running out of power, because I don't know..." _If they can make it back on their own. What it'll do to them if they don't._

The song she'd put special on her player for wallowing after these sessions, still playing. _They won't make it home, but they really don't care._

"Most of them are trained agents," her boss says, concerned. "Harkness, Sato, Jones-- you're really afraid we've lost all these people to that alien device forever?"

"Just-- take a look, sometime," she says, though she knows there's reasons he hasn't, because he might have prevented this and he's not good with the Interface. "Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold..."

He lets out a pained breath, and she can feel the sharp burst of unhappiness stab her throat like a dagger from inside.

-


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: The quote in number 5 is from Diane Duane's Deep Wizardry.

-

He wants to hurt them, he really does. He wants to lash back out, say _you can't really believe I wanted that, you can't really believe it's my fault, you can't really believe there was a choice involved, can you?_ But they're still glaring at him, and it wouldn't help.

And maybe it shouldn't. Maybe he deserves it-- no, he's not going down _that_ line of idiocy. But still-- there's something--

The sheer _idealism_ of it. The sheer idealism involved in saying, _just because there was a child screaming and struggling to join her new friends, and just because those friends could have wrecked the world if you'd defied them, that doesn't make it right. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have made a stand._

It's not right, but there's an idealism there, an innocence he couldn't bear to take away.

He glances in the mirror again, sees Gwen meet his eyes and pointedly look away.

_There are some things worth making a stand for no matter what the cost,_ he thinks. Owen glares at him and Tosh is still staring out the window. _It's that simple. Yeah... keep believing that._

_Keep believing that._

-

"It's called Torchwood," she tells the woman she is decidedly not flirting with. "I can't really say what we do, though."

"Huh," says the brunette, with the faintest frown. "Not exactly auspicious."

"Hmm?"

"The name. 'Torchwood'. Though it's not like names are destiny." She plays with the umbrella in her drink.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Well, think about it. Torch-wood. What happens to torch wood? Doesn't it burn?"

She stares at the wall of alcohol bottles, eyes widening as scenes flash before her eyes. Jack, screaming as he faced that devil. Ianto, just before he threw that punch. Owen, with the look of almost _fury_ he'd had when they dragged him out of that cage. Gwen, thinking, _this can't last, him and I. God, this job, it's killing me--_

She says, still staring at the wall, "Have you ever noticed how some things can be so blindingly obvious that it takes a total stranger to point them out?"

-

"It's just nature," he says to the bartender. "Natural instincts-- we've got to suppress in 'modern society'. It's in us, you see. The animal."

The bartender gives him a measured look as he pulls down a mug of beer. Owen takes that, in his mood, as an invitation to continue. "The hunter. The taste for blood. It builds up in you, and you've got to let it out. That primal need to dominate-- to fight. Know what I mean?"

"No," says the bartender, flashing a quick smile at a blonde as he hands her a martini.

"So-- wait, what?"

"I said 'no'. Who sold you that line of bullshit? 'Cos I always wanted to own the London Bridge."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not sayin' I don't enjoy a bit of healthy, vicarious violence now and then, yeah? Play a lot of Halo on my off-hours. Used to play rugby, at school. But you're talking like you can fix what's wrong with you by beatin' someone up. Doesn't work, mate. You're still gonna be angry an' you're still gonna be pathetic-- you're just gonna be too tired to realize it. It's _not_ nature. It's _not_ 'natural male behaviour'. And it's _not_ what's wrong with you. An' if you're stupid enough to keep thinkin' it is... Well, I just hope you only kill yourself."

Owen stares as the bartender turns away, his hand unconsciously clenching into a fist.

-

I don't think anyone is ever going to find this, because I don't think that anyone is going to be left after this-- and even if they are, the epicenter, this ravaged city, will be the last place they want to go. There's nothing more I can do. All I can do is wait, and try to fill the time, and yet I don't have nearly enough time to say all that I want to say. Love to my family, my friends-- that hardly has a point if they're all dead. What I want to try to explain, even if there's no one to explain it to, is _why_.

We didn't mean to. Who would mean to? What could be gained from a devastated world? Not power, not love-- perhaps cessation of suffering, but surely there would be quicker ways to bring that about. Quicker, surely kinder. Stupid thing to say. Of course we didn't mean to.

So why? Innocence, naivete. We didn't know what would happen. Or is that a lie? He told us not to, said it was suicide, but they weren't listening, by then-- they were desperate, not thinking clearly, not thinking. They thought it would solve all their problems-- thought they could turn back time. Get back all that they'd lost. Maybe I'm a fool for saying "they" when I was standing right there, silent.

We were tricked, we were decieved, we were not thinking. If there were even a chance that our actions would put the world at risk, that should have given us pause; we should have put that infinite possible damage at equal weight with the possible, enormous, but dubious gains. That was our responsibility as agents-- as human beings; because when the numbers are in the range of billions, the need of the many (the right of the many to live) really does outweigh the need of the one.

Somehow, we forgot. Somehow, despite the secrecy and the aliens and the impossible level of technology, we forgot that we were more than government wage-slaves. We forgot that we had higher responsibilities, dangerous powers, and kept wrapped in our cocoon of our own concerns-- and none of us realized the danger. For that, I could never apologise enough, so with forty-five seconds, I won't even attempt it.

Somehow, we forgot, and even if others' forgiveness could ever be offered for that, I could never forgive myself.

But now I do understand the terrible temptation to turn back time.

Sa

-

"Everything ends," the Doctor used to say. Jack thought that was a trifle pessimistic, but that was before he developed his persistent inability to die.

Now, looking through the files at the man who'd lived a thousand years, in sembelance after sembelance, he thought he understood a little better. To watch all you loved fade away... Of course you'd grow leery of connections; of course you'd always have to keep the coming end in mind.

And no wonder he was so willing to hasten those ends when he had to. Because he's pretty sure, now, that after a certain threshhold, after a certain number of losses and span of time, death becomes a thing of envy.

But at least he, allegedly, has a limited span; at least he has the assurance he's mortal. No matter how many people and empires he outlives, he will, someday, die. Presumably, anyway.

And Jack simply doesn't know. He might die tomorrow; he might die when time itself does. And that's not something he wants.

But what can he do? _Immortality is of terrible power. It would take something more powerful yet to defeat it..._

-


	3. Chapter 3

Notes: No real spoilers for S2 yet, but they'll probably come in any further installments. I'd direct you to my LJ for the most immediate updates, but my other posts on the topic would probably alienate pretty much everyone. But if you can deal with a bit of... shall we say... episode criticism, feel absolutely free to drop by, anything, anytime you like. It's not like I've had to put up a fence to keep people away...

-

It happened too quickly, even for him; it seemed like the space of a heartbeat between when everything was normal and when everyone on his team had been pushed to their knees, guns to their heads.

Well. Not _everyone_ on his team.

"So you call it 'retcon'," says Allison-- and why she thinks tying him up is going to do any good, he hasn't the slightest clue. All it'll do, long-term, is invite some truly delicious innuendo. He'd start on it now, but she's still talking, and he wants to know why.

"Probably thought you were being cute," she mutters, and goes behind his back for the knot. "You always think you're being cute. Everything you do, you do to be cute. But this time? I've got to hand it to you."

"Oh, really?"

"Mm-hmm. Total accident, of course, but you named the thing perfectly."

And now she's drawing him forward, eyes snapping, and he would've sworn her eyes weren't blue before. Maybe he hadn't looked enough. Well: obviously he hadn't looked enough.

"Check the internet," she said. "Retcons never work. Too many gaps-- there's always a thread or five left hanging. And when they fail-- well, hardly anything can alienate people more."

-

She's sitting on the couch, staring at her laptop (when isn't she, though?), and she's got music on there-- pop, sounds like maybe it's Japanese.

"Thought you weren't coming tonight," Owen says.

"You don't want me to be here?" she says. There's something just slightly off in her voice, but it's been a long day-- god knows it's been a long day.

"No-- course not. Just thought you weren't."

"Will you have enough time to ring Gwen, then?"

"Wha?"

Her laptop slams shut-- and suddenly she's in front of him, and the warmed steel of a concealed gun is up against his temple, and there's fury in her eyes like he would have sworn she could never be capable of. "I love you," she says. "You knew that. Why?"

"It was just once," he says. "Just the one thing-- it happened so fast, I swear I wasn't--"

"You always tell those lies! All of you, everyone-- you lie like no one else matters-- I'm done with it. I'm done with patience, I'm done with waiting with you-- probably I'm done with god-damned men-- I'm done making your _excuses_, I'm DONE, Owen! I'm not waiting for you anymore. And I'm not safe. I was never safe."

The safety clicks off. "Remember that in future."

She puts the safety on, holsters her gun, and picks up her laptop. "Tosh--"

She whirls around, gun back in her hand.

"...If I said I was sorry..."

"Are you? It'd be a shock. I'm tired of thinking you're enough. ALL of you. I'm tired of it, Owen!"

She puts the gun back and slams the door behind her, and he still doesn't understand.

-

She turns to leave, and this time, she'd really leave; this time, she's actually heading toward the door. And at this moment-- just at this moment-- you can't stand the thought of watching another person walk away.

"You forget what I know about you," you say.

"You don't know anything about me," she says, and you wonder if she actually believes that. "You don't know me," you couldn't have argued. "You barely know anything about me," that's a hard one to dispute. But to not know _anything_? Now that's ridiculous.

"I know enough," you say. "I know about you and Owen. I know about the RetCon pills that somehow seem to slip into you and your colleagues' pockets. I know what you've done. And I know his phone number."

"You son of a bitch," she says.

"Actually, no bitch was involved."

"He won't believe you."

"Yeah, he would. Trust me. The thing about taking someone's memories? You never-- _really_-- forget. There's always just one little line of synapses-- one last bundle of neurons, holding out, just waiting for the right chemical messenger to come along. You never remember. But if you're told-- if you try hard enough? You _know_."

Her hand hesitates above the handle; falls to her side. You've won.

For tonight. You still remember enough to know she'll never forgive you. You just don't particularly care.

-

The ghosts, she's readily come to accept, were just projections of that strange, strange demon-worshipping man. As should have been obvious, really-- why else would they want the thing opened? All those promises of mistakes undone, the safety of the world-- lies.

Then again. She can't help but think that her "mother" was suspiciously ambiguous in her pronouncements. She could have been telling her to stop them-- near the end, she was beginning to be pretty sure that had been what she meant. And then Owen fired, and she knew she'd waited too late.

But they weren't, actually, ghosts. She knows that.

And it's just the normal mechanics of dreaming that brought her mother into her dreams that night, random firing of neurons that made her show up by her bed. Association with old memories that made her lean down, place a familiar soft kiss on her forehead.

She knows all this. Still, she wonders what the explanation is for the words she dreamed she heard whispered in her ear.

"Toshiko, my beautiful daughter. Stay safe. And Toshiko, don't forget this-- have the strength to let love go."

-

All those moments are playing back in her head, now, all the pieces fitting together perfectly now that it's too late.

_Too good for us now, aren't you?_ from practically the first day she'd joined Torchwood.

_Oh, showing a little mercy to the beat cops, now, are we?_

_You and your special agency... think you can waltz in whenever you want..._

_You're not better than us. Stop rubbing it in our face._

"You're insane," she realizes, finally.

"More self-righteousness!" sneers the man who used to be her friend. "Think you're all better than me--"

"No! I don't! I never did! You keep sayin' that and I don't know _why_!"

"Because you do. You think you're better than me. And you're not, Gwen. You're just a stupid whore like the rest of them. I saw you with that man, Gwen. That _doctor_? What does that fat sod Rhys think about _that_?"

"I--" The breath's stopping in her throat, and damn it, this is not the time. "You've been _stalking_ me?"

Andy laughs. "Gwen, Gwen, Gwen." The knife-blade catches the light. "I think we have more important things to talk about."

They can track her: Toshiko can track her. They can track her, and they will, and any moment, Jack and the others will come in, guns drawn. Any moment now.

From the look on his face, she prays to god it's soon.

-

We drifted, for a while. We couldn't help it. It was the uncertainty of it. Where had he gone? Had he run away, was he coming back? Had we hallucinated him coming back at all? It would make more sense, if we'd hallucinated his return, but wouldn't most of our day-to-day lives? And wasn't that a terrifying thought?

Had something taken him? Was he waiting for us to find him? We looked and looked, and looked, but we couldn't find a trace. We found the surveillance footage: that arm of his, it'd started to glow, and he'd taken it and left. That thing he'd never explained. One of many things he never explained.

No anchor of him left, not even a trace of it, so we drifted, for a while; and then we remembered that it wasn't about him, it had never been about him. It was about the city, about the world-- the responsibility we had to it, to protect it.

And so we worked. Those first few days, you could see us working around him, see us still in orbits around the space that he'd left. But we adjusted, worked around him, decided who was in charge in what and got to yell at whom, and after a little while, it was working. Sort of. It was working.

And then he came back, like we were supposed to understand why. He wouldn't explain; so often he won't explain. But we need him. He knows what he's doing, we can feel it. He understands these things, he can face them every day without a blink. This is a world he can live in.

And we don't, we can't. We live in this world, but it's not our own; and there's a few weak moments we think it's killing us, slowly, a toxin building up in our minds. A quantum shift that'll get us someday, collapse all our atoms into dust.

But as long as the Rift's there, so are we; we'll work to contain it until it kills us, and then we'll rest. Unlike him.

We'll work 'till we come to the end, and that'll be okay, because we know he'll be there beyond it.

-


End file.
